As I mentioned before, I'm a big fan of Real Time Strategy (RTS) games. In your average RTS, you gather resources, train soldiers and use the resulting army to vanquish your enemy. Age of Mythology offers an interesting twist to this. In addition to ordinary infantry and cavalry units, you can create monsters of myth and legend to fight with your army. Minotaurs, sphynxes and giants help to crush your opponents. If that weren't enough, you also have the limited use of divine powers such as a meteor strike or an earthquake to further smite your enemies. Each unit has its own strengths and weaknesses. Myth units are vulnerable to Heroes. Siege units are particularly effective against walls and buildings, but are slow and have little defense. In Age of Mythology there are three different civilizations, each with their own unique mythos: Greek, Norse and Egyptian. Each has unique units and their own way of currying favor from their gods. In the expansion pack, Titans, a fourth civilization, Atlantean is introduced. But what's best about this game is that it's been around for a while and runs well on older systems. Minimum system requirements are 450 MHz processor, 128 MB RAM memory and a 3D video card. And this week, Circuit City is selling Age of Mythology AND the Titans Expansion for a whopping $4.99. So for the price of a fast food meal, you could be raising an army of Hopolites and Centaurs to smash your foes. Hey, it works for me.

Labels: Age of Mythology